Legislators or politicians?

Legislators or politicians?

The petition calling for an inquiry into President Megawati
Soekarnoputri's decision to attend the birth of East Timor last
month is another grim illustration of how most of our elected
representatives need to elevate themselves from being a bunch of
opportunistic politicians who have nothing else better to do with
their time. In spite of the tight legislative agenda of the House
of Representatives, and in spite of repeatedly failing to keep to
its schedule, these elected representatives prefer to squander
their time and resources playing power politics, rather than do
their work as legislators.

The petition, signed by 31 House members and filed with the
House leadership last week, calls for an inquiry into why
President Megawati went ahead with her visit to East Timor on May
19 and May 20 despite objections from some House members. A week
earlier, the House decided to pursue an investigation into
Megawati's decision to grant Rp 30 billion, taken from the
presidential aid funds (Banpres), to help renovate dilapidated
military barracks throughout Indonesia.

These two planned inquiries follow closely on the heels of
another debate within the House about a probe into the scandal at
the State Logistics Agency (Bulog), involving House Speaker Akbar
Tandjung. After eight months of lengthy debates, the House still
cannot come to an agreement whether or not to probe Buloggate II.
With two more inquiries on the agenda, we can be sure that House
members will be even busier wrestling each other in the coming
months.

This raises the following questions: Do they have time for
anything else? What about the House's legislative agenda? What
about the many bills that have been left pending because the
House has been too busy playing with power politics instead of
conducting their work as legislators? What about national
reforms?

When the nation held its first democratic elections in four
decades in 1999, it was with the highest expectation that elected
politicians would spend a great portion of their time
deliberating and enacting new laws. Given the nation's concerns
for a complete overhaul of the way the country is managed, we
assumed that legislation would be their main job.

The goal of turning the nation into a more humane and
prosperous civil society hinges to a large extent on the House's
ability to enact new laws in just about every field that is
necessary, not only to correct past mistakes, but also to allow
the nation to build a sound future. It is no exaggeration to
state that half of all the problems this country is dealing with
today -- and let's face it, we do have many serious problems --
could be resolved if we only had stronger and effective laws.

Since the task of making laws is in the hands of the House of
Representatives, its success or failure, or the pace of reforms,
is really in the hands of our politicians who were elected into
the House in 1999. If reforms appear to have stalled, then we
know where the problem lies.

The House has been engaging in the politics of a power
struggle virtually from the start of its formation in October
1999. It spent so much time and resources fighting President
Abdurrahman Wahid until he was impeached in July last year. Since
then, it has spared no effort in undermining the leadership of
President Megawati, whenever the opportunity presents itself.

In contrast, the House's performance in enacting new laws has
been abysmal. In the last working session between January and
April, the House managed to deliberate and endorse only six new
laws out of the targeted 16. In the current working session, it
has given itself a target of endorsing 22 new laws, including the
10 carried over from the last session. As we are halfway through
the session, we know that the House will fail to meet its stated
target again.

The House of Representatives for the 1998-1999 period (during
B.J. Habibie's presidency) is remembered as setting a record for
the highest number of laws enacted. But because they were all
rushed jobs, many of these laws had to be repealed and reviewed.
The 1999-2004 House of Representatives will probably break a new
record for the lowest number of legislations passed. And some of
these new laws were just as poorly deliberated.

Somehow, we do not know which is worse. But we do know the
poor caliber of our elected politicians. They still have to earn
their title as legislators, the office they were elected to.